All that carries over formally from colorful, highly articulated Haida and Tlingit and Kwakiutl totems, however, is a general sense of animistic presence; running their surface articulations and protrusions together into elongated episodes, Alpert clearly thinks of his Totems as single organisms, not compendia.

The Kwakiutl tribe, for example, might someday need help from the Tlingit; the Tlingit may get into a dust-up with the Haida they need to smooth over; the Haida could someday need a Kwakiutl ally in a face-off with a non-native enemy.